The intersection of Telfair Street and East Boundary saw full, festive crowds Saturday as residents, vendors, performers and local leaders gathered for the East Augusta Community Block Party.
“There’s so much that we aim to celebrate,” said District 1 Commissioner Jordan Johnson, who hosted the event, organized by the East Augusta Community Association and the Augusta Arts Council. “We want to celebrate community. We always called ourselves ‘the Bottom,’ but we have a new message for you: we’re the top, we’re the foundation, and we’re going to bring resources to a community that has been needing resources for quite some time.”
The festivities kicked off at 11 a.m., commemorating the completion of Augusta’s first crosswalk murals — three along the newly-striped crosswalks surrounding the intersection, adjacent to Magnolia Court Apartments. Along with a private donation, the murals were funded through the South Arts Cross-Sector Impact Grant, of which Augusta was one of 16 recipients this year.
The infrastructure improvements in the neighborhood also included pedestrian-activated flashing beacons and ADA cutouts on the sidewalks.
The easternmost mural, across the East Telfair Street crosswalk, is designed to signify “love, the courage to love and the fact that love lasts forever,” said Evans High School art teacher Raymond Sturkey, who partnered with the Augusta Arts Council to paint the murals.
The mural uses Ghanaian Adinkra symbols, to represent the predominantly African American community residing in the neighborhood.
“There’s a symbol that looks like a heart in our culture that means love, but in Adinkra culture it actually means courage,” said Sturkey. “Having the courage to love no matter what.”
Alongside food vendors, various resource booths were camped throughout the block, including several from the Georgia Department of Public Health, offering information for breast cancer surveys, HIV testing and other health screenings, WellCare, Harvest Food Bank and the Lucy Craft Laney Museum of Black History. Even the Blood Connection had a trailer for blood donations, in exchange for gift cards.
Johnson also took time to present the Community Champion Award to those whose contributions and efforts have benefited the area.
Recipients throughout the day included Bishop Rosa Williams of Everfaithful Missionary Baptist Church, who said the invocation for the event, Wayne Lanier, of Lanier’s Fresh Meat Market, Rev. William Blount of Greater Young Zion Baptist Church and Felicia Rhodes of Felicia Rhodes Ministries, one of the organizers of the block party.
The celebration is the first of what Johnson hopes will be an annual event. A recurring theme of the day was a sort of rebuttal to the neighborhood’s nickname “the Bottom,” and Johnson remarked that the block party expresses a new, optimistic vision for East Augusta, counter to its reputation as a dangerous, crime-filled area, and an honoring of those who have and still live in the neighborhood.
“We have an opportunity to really give back to this neighborhood because it’s had its fair share of issues,” said Johnson, noting that his mother, grandmother and great-grandmother all occupied the area, but that little has changed since those days. “Whenever we talk about East Augusta, we talk about the crime, the shootings. It’s easy to focus on the negative, but it’s hard to actually get in there and try to change that reality. But in this regard, the reality is that what you see is community, neighbors [and] community partners coming together and lifting up a neighborhood that… has not had the support that it deserves, over the span of three or four decades.”
The uplifting of the East Boundary neighborhood, from “the Bottom” to “the top,” was reiterated during Williams’ spirited prayer.
“We’ve been backed down too long, but we will stand up right now in the righteousness of God’s blessed will,” said Williams. “Thank you that we are coming together, Black and white, high and low, rich and poor, have and have not, we are sisters and brothers in Christ.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
